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Dale Dorsey considers one of the most fundamental questions in philosophical ethics: to what extent do the demands of morality have normative authority over us and our lives? Must we conform to moral requirements? Most who have addressed this question have treated the normative significance of morality as simply a fact to be explained. But Dorsey argues that this traditional assumption is misguided. According to Dorsey, not only are we not required to conform to moral demands, conforming to morality's demands will not always even be normatively permissible---moral behavior can be (quite literally) wrong. This view is significant not only for understanding the content and force of the moral point of view, but also for understanding the basic elements of how one ought to live.
Much of knowing what to do is knowing what to do for ourselves, but knowing how to act in our best interest is complex---we must know what benefits us, what burdens us, and how these facts present and constitute considerations in favor of action. Additionally, we must know how we should weigh our interests at different times---past, present, and future. Dale Dorsey argues that a theory of prudence is needed: a theory of how we ought to act when we are acting for ourselves. A Theory of Prudence provides a comprehensive account of prudence, including the metaethics of prudential value, the nature of the personal good, the reasons of prudence, and the structure of prudential normativity over time.
A common presupposition in contemporary moral and political philosophy is that individuals should be provided with some basic threshold of goods, capabilities, or well-being. But if there is such a basic minimum, how should this be understood? Dale Dorsey offers an underexplored answer: that the basic minimum should be characterized not as the achievement of a set of capabilities, or as access to some specified bundle of resources, but as the maintenance of a minimal threshold of human welfare. In addition, Dorsey argues that though political institutions should be committed to the promotion of this minimal threshold, we should reject approaches that seek to cast the basic minimum as a human right. His book will be important for all who are interested in theories of political morality.
Offers a sustained defense of the claim that the basic social minimum should be characterized in terms of human welfare.
Moral evaluations of actions are only appropriate for actions within the moral domain. Actions outside of the moral domain are amoral actions. In Why Suicide Is Amoral: A Philosophical Account, Robyn Gaier emphasizes the role of agency in determining whether an action is within the moral domain. If an agent lacks either deliberative agency or moral agency, then their action is amoral. An agent lacks deliberative agency if they cannot evaluate and act upon reasons, and moral agency if they cannot act upon moral reasons. Actions in which such agencies are compromised are also amoral actions. In treating actions of suicide, while granting their diversity, this book traces them to the loss or threat of loss of basic psychological needs. Gaier argues that when basic psychological needs are lost or under threat, an agent’s deliberative agency, moral agency, or both are either lacking or compromised. Hence, actions of suicide are amoral, and it is a conceptual mistake to attempt the moral evaluation of actions of suicide. Furthermore, when we regard actions of suicide as within the moral domain, we perpetuate a social stigma against suicide.
This volume presents twelve original papers on the idea that moral objectivity is to be understood in terms of a suitably constructed social point of view that all can accept. The contributors offer new perspectives, some sympathetic and some critical, on constructivist understandings - Kantian or otherwise - of morality and reason.
This is the inaugural volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory.
Provides an authoritative and comprehensive overview of consequentialism today, Includes a brief summary of the anthology's four parts and a concise primer on the nature and importance of the consequentialism/nonconsequentialism distinction, Relates consequentialism to the significant reform movements calling for environmentalism, effective altruism, animal liberation, and women's liberation Book jacket.
Consequentialism is a focal point of moral philosophy. Recently, new wave consequentialists have presented theories which proved extremely flexible and powerful in meeting influential objections. The volume explores new directions within this project, raises fundamental problems for it, and gives a balanced assessment of its scope in commonsense moral practice.
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback. "'Have you seen the latest OSAP?' is what scholars of ancient philosophy say to each other when they meet in corridors or on coffee breaks. Whether you work on Plato or Aristotle, on Presocratics or sophists, on Stoics, Epicureans, or Sceptics, on Roman philosophers or Greek Neoplatonists, you are liable to find OSAP articles now dominant in the bibliography of much serious published work in your particular subject: not safe to miss...